


How Snow Settles

by Naelhinn



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Character Death, F/F, Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:40:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27082087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Naelhinn/pseuds/Naelhinn
Summary: As they burned and turned to smoldering embers dancing in the library, together with all other recollections of her achievements, their echo wouldn't leave her mind.Oblivious death, my name allow your peaceAnd as it dies, to be my final kiss
Relationships: Annette Fantine Dominic/Ingrid Brandl Galatea
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4





	How Snow Settles

**Author's Note:**

> Day 4 - Knighthood/Sacrifice
> 
> Hi! Three things before the fic!  
> First of all, I'll be posting day 3 prompt someday soon I promise, I just didn't like what I had written and decided to write it all over again.  
> Then, I wrote the fic to go around the poem, which doesn't follow english versification to the exact letter because actually writing poetry in a language that isn't yours is kinda difficult. And also I just went with how it sounded, so I hope it didn't end up too bad.  
> Finally, as for Gluingel, this is the name I chose for the Galatea main city/castle, as we have almost no city names (except the capitals and some fortress cities.) Since the naming convention of Three House is Irish mythology, I searched for a fitting name and went for Gluingel because it echoes Galatea both in sound and colour apparently.  
> Anyway, hope you like it :D

_I call you forth oblivious death  
As light gets dim and life leaves me_

As she watched the bird become another gray dot in the sky, the pain intensified and her vision blurred. She laid in the snow and closed her eyes, breathing slowly, her hand clenched against her chest. As awful as the thought was, the only thing that kept her from fainting in the cold, covered by the swirling snow, was the blood fuming between her fingers. She didn’t have the strength to open her eyes again, but she knew that never had her name made more sense. Galatea. She was white as the snow that piled up on the roofs of Fhirdiad, that shrouded the sky they watched behind the window, that dotted Annette’s hair like early stars at dusk.  
Never had her name made more sense than the very day she hoped it would never be heard anymore.

The distant hoofs of her pegasus drew her back to consciousness. She was dozing off, but she didn’t know whether it was on purpose or not. It was over now, she knew it, she would die there, but something in her couldn’t accept it. Something that wouldn’t let her fall asleep, once and for all.  
Memories rushed in, restless and vengeful. She wanted to shake them away. She didn’t need more images of her. It was painful enough already to know she was leaving her alone - against her one and only wish - and being reminded of her failure in the last moments of her life wasn’t quite pleasant.  
Failure indeed. Not as a knight, but as a partner.

_Will you take me to your pastless realm_  
_And there quiet let my name rest?_

Dusk was settling, its purple shadows towering above Fhirdiad and the enchanted lights that sprawled in its streets. With the light snow of early spring wrestled shimmering wisps, joyful sparks of magic summoned by the recently idle students of the School of Sorcery. It was the fifth anniversary of the liberation of Fhirdiad. Soon enough the whole city would be glittering and sparkling under the mantle of the festivities.  
Balls and music, magic shows in the streets, old friends meeting again; this was supposed to be a good week, away from dangers and responsibilities. And so were the days that led to it, when you could feel the air crackling with magic and happiness.  
She sighed and opened the window. She hadn’t come to Fhirdiad in a long time, and she had missed the capital.  
Maybe she could convince Ingrid to stay there instead of returning to Galatea territory. She intended to propose before the end of the festival. She thought it would be a nice change, while her father could still take care of Galatea. Not only would she see Felix and Sylvain more often, it also made sense for her to be in the capital, where she was often summoned by Dimitri.  
Yet she always insisted on staying in Gluingel. Even though it was through gritted teeth. Even though she spent all her time home either training or with her.  
Once, Annette had asked her why she avoided her family. Why couldn't she bear their eyes, filled with pride and love?

_Will it a burning memory remain_  
_Or may it fade with the autumn breeze,_

She felt guilty. The sky was bright and blue. The heavy snow clouds had emptied their wrath and we're now swiftly leaving.  
Or maybe it was just a trick of her mind. She didn't feel anymore, her breath was reduced to a faint and distant whisper, light was pouring from the sky, cold and hazy.  
Even now, as her mind slowly drifted off, numbed and already distant, she felt guilty.  
What now of the cold hearth in Gluingel? And the barren fields that stretched across the land?  
What use was a dead daughter, last bearer of her crest, risen to the greatest honours of knighthood, to her father who had sacrificed so much?  
What use was a dead sister, her name already on history's lips, to her siblings?  
What use was a dead knight to her king?  
She felt guilty. She had failed them all. Her family long ago, and she had dared share their bread, the warmth of their walls. She dared staying with them when she could have brought them a better life, yet offered further ruin. She dared come back empty handed and knightly mantled.  
Her king and friend now, unworthy of the title and trust he had bestowed her.  
Her finally, who simply wanted to have her at her side.  
What use a dead lover if her name can't fade in the soothing shadows of oblivion?  
She felt guilty.

_Be but a leaf to history_  
_Blow to remembrance by her gentle breath?_

The stars were gleaming like tears in the snow. Memories, distant and vague, hazed Annette's mind as she hastened her pace through the palace. The few guards she met greeted her with a smile; it was not unusual to see her in the corridors late at night, carrying towers of papers on the verge of collapsing.  
Like the one she was buried into when Ingrid had asked her to come with her. She had mumbled an excuse, like opening a school of magic in the county and needing a teacher.  
She could still feel her breath as she drew arabesques on her skin. Its absence made it all the more sharp.  
She put the pile on the first table she saw and it immediately fell on itself, scattering the leaves all over the cold floor of the empty library.  
There were many letters. Much more than she thought, much less than she needed.  
Annette smiled while she grabbed them. They were all, in substance, exactly the same. A promise to return soon, a reassuring sign that everything was fine. The scribbled words brought up her voice, made her present through the ink Annette grazed with her fingertips, conjuring up the soft glow of the hearth, the intoxicating haze that seized her mind in Gluingel, her eyes half-closed, her head resting on the knight’s shoulder, half-dreaming of the stories she read her.

_For if dying a knight honoured and brave_  
_Is awarded a bright gleaming star,_

Was it fate’s way of mocking her? There was nothing, she felt nothing, neither the cold bite of the raging wind nor the warm flow of the sticky blood. She was entombed in snow, numb and gone already; yet in a cruel twist, the sharp feather she wrote with had come back to sting her..  
It was one of the small victories Annette had achieved during the years following the war. To get her to send a letter.  
A “silly request” she told her. Silly but meaningful, silly but ever so important to her. What she wrote didn’t matter much, she didn’t even need to write. Her name was enough.  
“Words convey so much…”  
And that was why she didn’t like to write. Others told stories better than her, she never found the perfect words, could never breathe meaning into them. Words conveyed so much they were treacherous; an unfairly complicated way to express herself.  
“... but their mere presence, however faint, offers comfort and warmth meaning can’t achieve.”  
She sank deeper in the snow as the feather did in her flesh.  
It was just a silly request. One of the little gestures Annette needed, the anchor of their relation. Her promise not to leave her. Never to disappear without a word.

_A searing flame for future eyes to see_  
_Yet in its fame her pain and sorrow fuel;_

Ingrid had taken it very seriously. Not once had she forgotten. The first were blank or at least short and to the point, hardly sentimental, but they always provided this otherworldly sensation of blissful wholeness to Annette.  
Soon however, they had started to fill up. Pointless details, meaningless expressions of love, hesitant sentences, hazed by the prospect of quick return. Telling her how she missed her shoulders, how she couldn’t wait to get back to Gluingel, how, how, how… it never stopped.  
They were synonyms of her return, shooting stars heralding short outbursts of happiness.  
She wrote to her too, on the rare occasions when Ingrid was left without any mission but couldn’t accompany her in Fhirdiad.  
And she wrote back. Sometime, Annette found crumpled drafts long after she was gone. She hadn’t burned any. Whether they were complete or not mattered little to how they lit her face and eyes. In Ingrid’s absence, they were the voice she fell asleep to, the arms that lulled her. They were a treasure of presence.

Yet here they were, scattered on the floor, dull embers struck silent by the scream that had reached Annette through the faded ink of the misshapen words. They were all awfully pale and painfully empty. Whispers of love so prompt to abandon her.

_Oblivious death, my name allow your peace_  
_And as it dies, to be my final kiss._


End file.
